Re: yellow

>Sharkel ("White Castle") was a Khazarian
>foundation, and here the "white" referred to
>geographical location rather than status.******

Does this toponym actually mean... "yellow"?
(Turk. sarI /$arI/, Hungarian sárga /'Sa:rgO/)

>*****GK: None that I know. There is an obscure
>"akliba" in Idrisi, but there is no agreement as to
>either meaning or location. BTW you might be
>interested in this: the same 1470 document which seems
>to give the earliest historical attestation of the
>Romanian form "Cetatea Alba" for Belgorod/Bilhorod has
>an alternative Moldavian form "Tirgul Albu" which also
>stands for "Belgorod" "White fortress"(Documentele lui
>Shtefan cel Mare, vol. I, Bucharest 1913, p. 153)*****

Aha, thank you. (Anyway, it seems that some of these
"white" settlements were rather... "yellow" initially -
if, e.g., $arkel is to be read as... Gelbburg or even
more fittingly Falwenburg - although "die Falwen"
were the Khazars' cousins: the Cumans.

George